Freelance Graphic Designer Niko Lin enjoys experimenting with different design styles. She believes that engaging design is not about creating brand new ideas, but to present something in a different perspective, allowing people to notice things they often take for granted.

The featured project, titled My/Your First Impression, is a large format publication, documenting the accuracy of our snap judgements about strangers.

Niko about her project: “Being a relatively impatient person, I rely on my snap judgements a lot. However, as a kid, I was told over and over again –haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think. Consequently, I often wonder how accurate my judgements really are. I decided to measure the accuracy of my first impressions on strangers with a little experiment.

On Christmas Eve, I spent a day in Bristol, giving out Christmas cards to grumpy-looking people, whom I thought would not accept my card. Most people I interviewed responded that they do judge others, and the majority saw this as unacceptable. I then decided to conduct another test, aiming at measuring the accuracy of everyone’s first impressions. Around 50 people took a survey of six simple questions, and the results of this survey were then correlated with evaluations by my friends and their close friends.”